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Cookbook Review Criteria
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Ochef reviewers try to consider each book within the context of its stated or apparent goal — it it's meant for novices, we don't compare it to cooking school textbooks. We make value judgments about certain categories (flavor, production quality, etc.), but other categories are simply factual (number of recipes, list price, etc.). The following are the review criteria that might need some explanation:
AmbitionsIntended audience — For whom (at what skill level) is this book primarily written, as stated by the author, publisher, or our best guess?
Apparent goal — How comprehensively does the book treat its subject?
Competition — How does this book stack up to other books in the same category already on the market?
Content
Practical recipes — Most people cook fewer than 5 to 10 recipes from any given book. Many books have a number of A-list recipes and are padded out with lackluster fillers. The rest sit idle. This category is a guess at the number of good, valid, potential, edible recipes included in the book. We generally cook two or three recipes from each book we review, so this category represents leap of faith on our part.
# of ingredients — On average throughout the book, how many ingredients (excluding salt, pepper & water) does each recipe require?
Ingredient hunt — Most ingredients in most books are easily obtainable. On average, does the book reviewed have more than its share of hard-to-find ingredients? Impossible-to-find ingredients?
Recipe complexity — In the context of the book's intended audience, how complicated are the recipes, on average.
Instructions — How clear and comprehensive are the instructions?
Time conscious — If the book makes promises about the time required to complete the recipes, how valid are they on average? (And are they valid in the context of the book's intended audience?) Otherwise, on average, are the recipes rational and realistic in terms of how long they take?
Photos/drawings — If the book includes photos and/or drawings, how much do they contribute to the book's value and utility? Do they help you cook or are they solely ornamental?
Recipe results — How fancy, in general, are the dishes produced by the recipes in this book?
Flavor quotient — How do the dishes taste in general, again, based on the dishes we test and our extrapolations for the rest of the book?Format
Layout — Does the layout and format of the book get in the way of your using it effectively; is it cluttered and hard to follow? Or does the layout help you follow the recipes?
Legibility — Is the type of an adequate size, or does it get in the way of your cooking?
Production quality — How well made is the book, taking into consideration it's binding. In the case of books that are available in multiple formats, we are referring only to the format reviewed.
Value — Our assessment of the production quality of the book, the quality and utility of the recipes, etc., relative to the cost of the book, and relative to other books in its class.
Ease of Use
Page numbers — A pet peeve, if ever there was one, is having a great book with a great table of contents and a great index, but page numbers hiding in the gutters of the pages, appearing only once every 10 pages, etc.
Table of contents — It is useful; is it easy to use?
Index quality — Stocking suffers may not need them, but for most cookbooks, an index can make or break the book.
Page flipping — Do recipes travel from one page to the next, to the next, to the next? Or do many recipes make use of other referenced recipes that are found on other pages, and which must be prepared first? In some cases this is unavoidable, but there have to be limits.
Author
Writing background — What is the author's writing background, and how well written is the book?
Cooking background — What are the author's cooking credentials?
Summary
Overall rating — We don't bother to review books that we consider to be substandard. The others we rate from fair to excellent.
Ochef Top 100 — These are the books we consider to be the 100 best cookbooks on the market.
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